Dan Parsons - Cinematographer

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Dan Parsons - Cinematographer This page features the cinematography of Dan Parsons.

Dusted off this micro essay on the Film vs. Digital topic. Circa. early 2000s. Do these ideas hold up decades later?The ...
20/11/2025

Dusted off this micro essay on the Film vs. Digital topic. Circa. early 2000s. Do these ideas hold up decades later?

The Harpsichord, the Piano, Film, and Digital

For years, digital acquisition has been pushed to behave like celluloid—as though film is the standard and digital is the understudy. But could this mindset be keeping us from discovering what digital actually is and what it is capable of expressing?

Composers don’t call for specific instruments by pretending they’re the same. They specify each instrument according to its unique voice and expression. A harpsichord plucks. A piano strikes. Same keys, same notes, wildly different mechanics and musical expression. Neither is superior—they’re just different tools for expressing unique ideas. One isn’t a flawed attempt at the other; they are distinct instruments with characteristic expressions.

Film and digital are also different instruments. While they are both fully capable of expressing visual ideas, each has a signature the other can’t naturally produce. Matching one to the other requires resource-heavy intervention—and, arguably, misses the point.

In our efforts to make digital indistinguishable from film, are we slowing down the moment when digital finally and fully becomes its own instrument? Are we so obsessed with perfect imitation that we’re delaying true innovation?

Imitation is not a prerequisite for innovation. And it stands to reason that digital is capable of expressions we have yet to behold. And so we should consider: in our race to make digital indistinguishable from film, are we slowing down the moment when digital finally becomes its own instrument? Are we so obsessed with perfect imitation that we’re delaying true innovation?

18/09/2025

It’s not in the latest update; it’s not even in your favorite gear. It’s not just in your time on set or that refresher course—or even that class you want to take.

It’s in you.

It’s in the down time: the time when you are a son or daughter, a friend, a spouse, a brother or sister, and aunt or uncle. Lean in to those times and discover the depths of what it means to be human. And then you have a wealth to draw from when you “speak” creatively and powerfully with your next production.

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Visual Storytelling through Cinematography

I grew up without a television. That’s probably not something you would expect a cinematographer to say, but it has certainly been a shaping influence in my career. When I discovered what cinematography was for the first time, I realized it was a way I could take the pictures I had always seen in my mind and bring them to life for others to see.

While I don’t adhere to any number of visual styles--every story is unique and deserves a unique telling--lighting has always been a signature of my work. Years of listening to radio dramas built up a catalogue of images in my head that are as indelible to me today as they were to me as a child. A side benefit to these images is that I have learned to “see it before it is.”

Watching a vision unfold in reality never gets old. Sitting next to a director when they see their vision come to life in ways that they might not have even imagined--these are magical moments that never get old.